Renowned storyteller Will Ferguson’s journeys have taken him everywhere from the verdant countryside of Northern Ireland to the vibrant cherry blossoms of Japan.

Still, the well-travelled Calgary author was overwhelmed by a lesser-known country’s virtues when he set foot there five years ago.

“Rwanda is filled with green rolling hills, the climate is temperate and the people are warm and welcoming,” says Ferguson, whose experiences there resulted in his 2015 book Road Trip Rwanda: A Journey into the New Heart of Africa.

“I think more Canadians should visit — it’s clean, safe and so beautiful.”

Ferguson knows that Rwanda can be a hard sell: while famed for its majestic mountain gorillas, it’s infamous for being the site of a genocide that, over 100 days in 1994, took the lives of more than 800,000 of its citizens.

“People should go to Rwanda not despite the genocide, but because of it,” says Ferguson, whose road trip companion was his Calgary friend Jean-Claude Munyezamu, a Rwandan Canadian who escaped the country before the atrocities began to unfold, but lost three of his siblings and many other extended family members.

Today, Munyezamu, who was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Medal for his community work, is well known in these parts as the founder of Soccer Without Boundaries, a sports program for children of immigrant and low-income families in the city.

“The beauty and the history is why you should go,” says Ferguson. “It’s important for us all to remember what happened there.”

Calgary writer Will FergusonPostmedia Archives

That is why Ferguson also plans to be in the audience on Saturday for the 24th Commemoration of the Genocide Against Tutsis in Rwanda. Hosted by the Rwandan Canadian Society of Calgary, the event takes place from 3 to 5 p.m. at Mount Royal University’s Lincoln Park Hall.

The city’s Rwandan community, part of the more than 10,000 Rwandan refugees in Canada today, gathers each year to mark the April day back in 1994 when the slaughter of Tutsis — an illegitimate ethnic distinction in a country where people were divided between that minority and the Hutu majority — began in the central African country.

Regine Uwibereyeho King is one who can never forget.

King, an associate professor in the faculty of social work at the University of Calgary, was one of the millions who today rightfully call themselves genocide survivors. She is one of the featured speakers at the Calgary commemoration April 7.

She was a 27-year-old university student, visiting her family’s farm on a school break, when the massacre began. Two of her brothers were killed, while another brother survived not one, but three separate machete attacks. Today, he lives in Rwanda with his wife and three children.

Regine Uwibereyeho King

King, who has since dedicated her life to working with victims of trauma, was able to hide with the help of her neighbours.

“It was just a matter of chance,” she says, that she was able to successfully evade capture when so many weren’t. Surviving, she says, gave purpose to her life, one that includes helping others and “keeping my mind and my eyes open.”

Today, she says that remembering the genocide in her home country is important for all Canadians.

“Genocide is a global issue, not just a Rwandan one,” says King, who came to Canada in 2000 and recently moved to Calgary from Winnipeg. “The more we speak about it, the more we all are better informed.”

Haunting reminders of her and others’ trauma can still be found in the beautiful country, as Ferguson noted in his book.

He tells about the moving experience of visiting a genocide memorial where 45,000 people were massacred on a hilltop, along with a school in which six teenage students of both so-called races were murdered, a good three years after the genocide’s end.

His appreciation for that country today — and his friendship with Munyezamu and other members of Calgary’s Rwandan Canadian community — is just one of the reasons why he feels it’s important to join them in this annual commemoration.

“These are our neighbours,” says Ferguson of a community he knows first hand is a warm and welcoming one. “They want us to join them so they can share their stories with us.”

This Week's Flyers

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.